RVIA Economic Impact Study

The Recreation Vehicle Industry Association commissioned an Economic Impact Study on the RV industry, released on June 7, 2016. The study found that the RV industry contributes about $49.7 billion in economic output or 0.28 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Through its production and distribution linkages, the industry impacts firms in 426 of the 440 sectors of the United States economy.

Nationwide, the industry is responsible for 216,170 jobs, both directly and inderectly, creating an economic impact of $37.5 billion. The full study results, along with each individual state and congressional district's economic impact is available on the website by clicking here .

Roadmaster Debuts Nighthawk Tow Bar

Roadmaster has introduced the Nighthawk, a non-binding, aluminum alloy tow bar incorporating a jaw-dropping design with embedded LED lights. It includes internally-routed safety cables and power cord, an attractive black matte finish and solid stainless steel inner arms.

Nighthawk is Roadmaster’s first tow bar designed for EZ5, MX and MS tow bar mounting brackets, which incorporate the strength of the crossbar into the mounting bracket — so no crossbar is required.

Aesthetically, the Nighthawk emulates the clean, sleek look of the Sterling All-Terrain tow bar, with which it shares many performance and convenience features, including a military-grade aluminum alloy shell.

Nighthawk is motorhome mounted and has an 8,000-pound capacity. It only weighs 35 pounds, yet tows up to four tons.

The Nighthawk’s most prominent features are as follows:

• A dazzling row of LEDs along each tow bar arm that illuminate with the motorhome’s lights. The 300-lumen LEDs add safety and convenience to nighttime towing — what was the darkest portion of the towing system is now easily visible to other drivers, and also visible when it comes time to disconnect.

• The Nighthawk has the longest tow bar arms ever produced, giving you maximum stability while towing. With more space between your towed vehicle and motorhome, tight turns become routine. And with the largest hook-up radius available there’s no wasted time lining up a towed vehicle to connect it.

• Nighthawk is quick and easy to hook up as there is no crossbar. No unsightly steel cluttering up the front of the towed car. Cleaner, sleeker, easier all because Nighthawk is designed from the ground up to connect directly to the EZ-5 style baseplates.

Other performance features include:

• Non-binding Freedom Latch — disconnects first time, every time.

A patented cam design inside the Freedom Latch transforms linear motion into rotary motion at a 400-to-1 ratio — five pounds of force against the latch equals 2,000 pounds of force against the lock. So you’ll never have to straighten and align the towed vehicle and motorhome to release the tow bar — the Freedom Latch releases the tow bar at any angle or bind.

• Black matte powder coat finish, textured for easy grip. This finish exceeds all 500-hour salt spray, high-impact and extreme weather standards. In this process, charged particles of pigment are sprayed onto the surface of the tow bar, then baked at more than 400 degrees. The paint fuses to the metal. The result is a uniform, thick and durable finish — three times stronger than solvent-based paint.

• Patented one-step storage latch — fold the tow bar and it automatically locks in place

Convenience features include:

• One-person quick connect and disconnect — telescoping, independently-adjustable inner arms are easy to maneuver into position. Simply pin them in place and then drive your motorhome away. The arms automatically extend, center and lock in place.